Our Week in Review

This week went by so quickly!  The kids are loving school, extra activities, and time outside.  The long-anticipated half birthday arrived for Lydia and she got to pick a treat to have for dessert.  We made two-bite brownies, added a purple candle, and sang "Happy Half Birthday".  Lydia loves being in the spotlight and she's so cute and dynamic that it makes it fun to watch as she is being singled out.  She came home from school so excited because she told her PE teacher, Coach Horton, that it was her half birthday so he sang her "Happy Birthday" in boy opera style.  😂

Halloween is around the corner and we are SO excited!  Andrew and I put out our Fall decorations and we have been scouting out fun Halloween decor and costumes.  And sometimes you find something and just have to get a picture.

Andrew and I have been going to the library once a week for storytime and he enjoys it more and more each time.  It's been tough to be the only kid with boring Mom and we've had to be creative with how we spend time together.  One thing Andrew has quickly grown to love this month is reading.  This week at the library, we checked out "Creepy Pair of Underwear" and it's funny every time we have read it.

This week marked the finishing of the fence.  Roy and I spent over 30 hours staining it over about 2 weeks (thanks for being patient, kiddos!) so finishing the fence this week was a big moment.  It was actually a little disppointing to finish it and go in to clean the brush and eat lunch without a celebratory fireworks display 😉  I love our house and our yard and I'm grateful for the hours of fun that we have already had out here and the view we can enjoy from our rocking chairs.

Our Version of Camping Out

On Friday, we went to our Ward Campout, but since we are lame and without camping gear, we just stayed for the playing and campfire portion of the evening.  The kids loved being with friends on the small lake-front beach throwing sticks, collecting shells, and building sand castles. There's something magical and timeless about being outside with friends.  The icing on the cake was eating s'mores and roasted Starburst.  If you haven't roasted Starburst before, you need to try it.  It's like eating a giant, gooey Skittle...so yummy!

Wild West Birthday

I wish I had taken more pictures of the phenomenal birthday celebration we went to for cousin Zach's 11th birthday.  There was a lot of fun, a lot of gorgeous Wild West-themed decorations, great food, and even a surprise visit from the park ranger!  The cousins had a blast galloping around, robbing the bank and the stagecoach, doing a few rounds of Tug of War, horseshoes, and sack races, and being sure to fully embrace their roles as bandits.  

Getting instructions from the Bandit Leader

Cousin Memories

Sometimes you are lucky enough to recognize the unplanned moments that will create happy, forever memories for your kids and family.  This overflowing bubble bath filled with 5 Zwahlen girl cousins will be a thing of stories for all their children someday!

Roy's New Baby

My amazing husband has started blogging about his years growing up as a military brat living in the Middle East. I may tease him about having a maid and a cook, having a graduating class of 8, and being able to play every sport, be in every club, and do every activity he wanted because there was hardly any competition (also, his mom says he was also good at everything so he probably could have done all that in the States too), BUT there is something magical and inspiring about the way Roy sees the world and loves and wants to serve people no matter how similar or different they are from others. So if you want to read about a growing up experience far different from your own written through the lens of fatherhood, you want to be inspired, or you just want to know what makes Roy Roy, read his blog! He hopes to publish a new blog each Sunday as inspired by what happens in our lives that week.

https://folliesofyourfather.blogspot.com/

Zwahlen Family Reunion

Just a few days after the Freebairn family reunion ended, we drove down from Lehi to St. George.  Roy had left at the beginning of the week for a business trip and actually arrived back in Utah the day before the reuinon so he met us in St. George.  That meant that I achieved Super Mom status as I successfully managed 4 bathroom stops, 1 gas stop, and 1 lunch stop with 4 semi-tired but very excited kids (also, I was newly pregnant and experiencing waves of not feeling too great).  In reality, I recognize that driving for 4 or so hours with these good kids isn't a terribly hard thing, but I still had to gear up for it and give myself a couple pep talks :)  

We arrived in St. George with just enough time to get riled up and hyper before dinner :)  The kids were so excited to see cousins and pick up where they left on the games they always play together.  They were excited to see Roy too, of course, but he was quickly pushed aside so they could hug other family members.

One of our stops in St. George was the brand new LDS Family History Center.  It was pretty awesome!  You can learn all sorts of fun things about your ancestors, your last name, important things about the year you were born, and other things that tell your family story.  It was a lot of fun!

Roy demonstrating how dashing he would look as a Roman soldier 

(they had a screen across from him that used his face on the body of a Roman soldier)

On Sunday, we had the privilege of getting together with all the Pyper people.  Roy's mom, Susan, is the oldest of the Pyper children and she and her sisters coordinated a get-together for the extended family.  Amazing that so many people can come from an original family of 4 siblings!  It was so fun to see the original Pyper cousins all catching up, laughing at old jokes, and egging on their kids.  St. George was so ridiculously hot that the evening HAD to include a water balloon war, in which all the kids naturally teamed up against the two oldest boys...

We had a great trip to the St. George Children's Museum, which was a nice break in air conditioning.  I'm not kidding when I say that it was so hot there.  Andrew especially loved the museum and was my little buddy through most of the time we spent there.

Sam on stage means lots of potty humor 

Every once in a while, I see Roy and the kids from behind and I have to slow down and take a picture so I can capture everyone willingly holding hands, at least one person chatting Roy's ear off, and just being happy.

So, so tired!

St. George has this fun lazy river running through the downtown gathering place.  The kids all had a great time playing and were pretty much dry when we got to the car.

Poor Lydia ended up getting the stomach bug for a couple days.  She was so tired that she literally fell asleep on the toilet.  It was pitiful.  She is the most likely kid to get a stomach bug among our kids so she knows just what to do to take care of herself, but it was particularly sad that she missed out of fun time with family.

Abby and I went with some of the Zwahlens to see "Newsies" at Tuachan and it was incredible.  She loved it so much and still talks about it, listens to the music, and was excited to see that "Newsies" just got added to Netflix.  She and Roy have a date planned to watch it together.

We had to go find more water on yet another hot morning.

Sam being attacked by a spider...a candy spider.

And then we were back in the party car heading back up north to spend the last few days with my sister Becky.

On the way back up, we stopped by Cove Fort and went on a little tour.  It was really cool to see how the telegraph works, the tiny beds that people would share, the kitchen that was used for cooking for the family and anyone who happened to get of the stagecoach that day, and the strong walls built of volcanic rock from the nearby mountain.

We had so much fun seeing all the Zwahlens at the reunion and getting in lots of great play time with cousins.  That cousin play time is always my favorite part of any family get-together :)

Freebairn Family Reunion

We live across the country from my side of the family, which has been hard for me.  Sometimes I get mad because it's not what I pictured for my life.  Other times, I get jealous of the big or small events I miss, even if it's just a random family dinner.  Thank goodness for social media, texting, and being able to go out to see everyone.  Because we see our Freebairn relatives only once a year on average, we all try to take advantage of that week we get together and create fun memories and forge deeper friendships among cousins so that when we aren't together, we still feel connected.  We started telling our kids about the summer 2017 Freebairn Family Reunion over a year before it happened.  Once we got the dates and plane tickets, it seemed like most things we talked about were "before the reunion" or "after the reunion".  On a related side note, the week after the Freebairn reunion was the Zwahlen reunion, which I will cover in a different post.  Both were definitely highlights of the summer for all of us.  It was amazing to see so much family in just a few weeks!

As soon as we left the Salt Lake Airport, we went to Roy's favorite restaurant in Salt Lake, Crown Burger.  We were lucky and my dad met us in SLC and had dinner with us.  Then Roy took the 3 youngest up to Midway while Abby and I stayed with my dad for a Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra concert featuring the organists.  It had already been a really long day and the seats were hard (oops, I forgot to warn her about that), but she loved the concert and we soaked up the extra couple hours we got with my dad!  I made them pose outside the SLC LDS Temple and I love this picture :)

My kids are really blessed because they all have cousins who line up with them in age and gender.  Sam and his 7-year-old cousins Logan and Tyson wasted no time in creating comic books, talking all manner of potty humor, and inventing the scariest or stinkiest monsters ever created.

We rented this massive car that could fit 8 people very comfortably.  We tried to keep it as full as possible, which was really fun for all of us.  After the trip was over, we decided that the song everyone danced to the most in our car was "Something Just Like This"--we got all ages and all cousins singing and dancing to it :)

We did a really fun hike called Cascade Springs with all the families.  The trail was really flat and beautiful, there was a creek to play in, and the kids were so happy to be together.  Here are about half the grandkids in their serious and silly poses:

We had a free afternoon so Roy and I took the kids to Provo to show them some of the highlights of our time at BYU.  There's never enough time to see everything even if we had days.  So many memories came flooding back of time spent on the BYU campus, time spent in the MTC (Missionary Training Center), and things in the general area of Provo.  We took the kids through the apartment complex (Cinnamon Tree) where Roy and I met and showed them our apartments (from the outside...we didn't want to freak people out), took them to the Panda Express where we loved to eat dinner together, and showed them the two temples in Provo.  

There's a big hill in Midway with a memorial on top for soldiers who served from the area.  We loaded up our car with kids and headed out for what turned out to be a longer hike than we planned :) but it was so much fun.  It was a beautiful day and there was a lot to explore.  Once we got to the top, it was a very humbling feeling to be surrounded by the American flag and names of those who had given up time and even their lives for both friends and strangers so we could continue to enjoy the freedoms of living in this country.

Abby and Brynne, born 2 months apart, have an incredible friendship and have this marvelous ability to pick up where they left off each time we see each other.  I absolutely love it!

Sam was super thrilled to pause the fun for a family picture :)

No family reunion is complete without family pictures.  That is so important to me!  We were the first to arrive so we got to be the practice people for background and lighting.  I love these cheeseballs!

More than once, Uncle Neil was at the bottom of a wrestling match dog pile.  You can just barely see his head under all the blondes and browns and reds :)

My dad's side of the family lives in SLC so we got to see them a couple times.  My Aunt Carla, who we call AC, is the best and also sends surprise packages to the kids for holidays and for just because.  The kids loved spending time with her!

My sister Cami is such a big part of the fun in our family.  A lot of the time she just listens, but it's not like she's quiet.  The kids have some funny games they like to do with her like asking her to laugh like certain people (her impersonations are pretty uncanny), asking her if she wants to go on the poo-poo train, and playing a game we played with her when I was growing up: while sitting on her lap, you say, "Oh, Cami, you're so (fill in the blank with adjectives, preferably ones that begin with a k sound)...and kind and" and Cami knows that when you say kind it's time to push you to the floor.  It's a game that has been going for a good 15 years and everyone loves it.  It's almost a requirement to do it now :)

We were so lucky and got to celebrate Father's Day with my dad!  He is the king of drawing pig noses when he draws pictures so it was very fitting that we gave him both a pig nose and this picture of all 18 grandkids trying on the pig nose first:

We also got in a great visit with my Grandma, whom we call Mambo.  This Grandma, who has 8 grandchildren, plus 5 in-law grandchildren, and 18 great-grandchildren, has never missed a birthday card for a birthday and prays for these little ones.  She's so positive, has kept her Southern charm, and hasn't met somebody who isn't already a friend.  I love every chance we get to spend time with her!

And we got in time with Uncle Danny (who we used to call Pumper Panny when I was growing up...I wish I could remember why besides the fact that we were just weirdos), Aunt Jenn, and my cousin Jared.  They are so much fun and make goofy faces, tell silly stories, and take time to talk to each of my kids to get to know them.

This picture is blurry, but I have to share it.  Lydia wanted a sleepover with her 5-year-old girl cousins so bad and so we did it!  They fit into one small bed, played blanket jump in the morning, and giggled together.  It was so sweet!

We went to the local hot springs hill across the street from the resort where we were staying.

Photobomb by Uncle Steven

One cool thing my parents did was to take out small groups of kids on dates.  Their attempt to take the littlest boys (age 3) wasn't going well because both boys were shy so they grabbed the big boys (age 7) to accompany them.  I joined in for the fun since Andrew panicked about needing to go potty while they were out.

The Midway area is beautiful and the weather was so nice!

The last night we were together was the big, culminating ride on the Heber Creeper, a train that goes around the Heber Valley.  Besides being sickeningly hot on the train for the first little while (and a super grumpy lady who couldn't keep her thoughts about others and the overwhelming smells of her Christmas Tree essential oils to herself), I loved the ride!  Look at these sweet faces.  They loved it so much!